1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an integrated circuit card having a liquid crystal display for viewing at least a portion of the information stored therein.
2. Description of Related Art
Integrated circuit (IC) cards are finding increasing popularity as compact, highly portable information storage articles. Also known as smart cards or chip cards, IC cards typically are credit card sized and contain an integrated circuit element that provides electronic data storage and/or logic function capability. Information stored on an IC card can be widely ranging, from financial to medical to personal identification information. Additionally, IC cards usually contain input/output connections for connection to an external control device that retrieves, updates, and/or displays the stored information.
A drawback with most IC cards is that the stored information is not immediately viewable by the bearer. While the IC card may contain information on the bearer's bank account balance, the bearer may not be able to see conveniently what is that balance. One solution has been to provide a separate IC card reader that "reads" the stored information and displays it. But such a solution has the limitation of requiring an additional component that may not be immediately accessible or readily portable, for example requiring the bearer to go to the nearest bank branch or ATM machine or to remember to bring the reader along on a trip.
Some constructions in which a display is integrated into an IC card have been proposed, such as Jachimowicz et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,734,154 (1998) entitled "Smart Card With Integrated Reader And Visual Image Display." As IC cards increase in popularity and find applications in more and more areas of daily life, bearer access to the stored information becomes increasingly important. At the same time, their ubiquitousness means that IC cards are approaching commodity item status, meant to be disposed of after a finite number of uses, imposing strong economic pressure reduce their cost. Further, size, weight, and ruggedness permitting an IC card to be carried around in a wallet is an important consideration. Lastly, due to its limited size and thickness, an IC card offers limited electrical power storage (or generation) capability, so that the power consumption of a display and the electronics associated with it must be low enough.